An Englishman in Moscow in the 70’s – talk at The Bedford

Godfrey Weldhen will be talking about the day-to-day experiences of living in Moscow and Leningrad in 1979 and 1981 at 7pm on 1st May at The Bedford Hotel.

Hear about ‘Moscow Rules’ and the KGB, Soviet TV and radio, the Soviet health system and the day-to-day realities of living and working in this fascinating and enigmatic city – eating out, getting around and getting to know the locals.

Godfrey attended the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of London University, gaining both a BA and MA degree in Russian History, before transferring to the London School of Economics as a PhD research student. He has spent most of his working life lecturing in Russian History and Soviet Politics at the University of Helsinki. He was Bitish Council research scholar at Moscow University 1979-1980 and at Leningrad University in 1980. He lived in St. Petersburg for two years after the collapse of the USSR and was the first British scholar to work in the archive in Kirov, a city closed to westerners during the Soviet period.